


If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride

by stuffandnonsense



Series: The Ballad of Giles and Anyanka [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e09 The Wish, F/M, Forbidden Love, Moral Dilemmas, Season/Series 03, Summer of Giles 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24698575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffandnonsense/pseuds/stuffandnonsense
Summary: Two months after the events ofHurricane Mitch, Anyanka heeds the call for vengeance at Sunnydale High. Because it’s absolutely the best way to get the job done, she infiltrates the school as a supply teacher. But why on earth wouldRipper Gilesbe there?Rupert can’t believe his good luck in getting a second chance.Like all of theFurther Tales, this can be read as a stand-alone ‘what if’, but theBalladstories are best read together.
Relationships: Rupert Giles/Anya Jenkins, Rupert Giles/Anyanka
Series: The Ballad of Giles and Anyanka [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1411537
Comments: 16
Kudos: 16
Collections: Summer of Giles





	1. Chapter 1

Rupert Giles was making tea in the staffroom, idly trying to remember the names of the latest crop of supply teachers, when she waltzed through the door. He dropped his favourite mug, smashing it, burning himself, and ruining his shoes. But he was too caught up in the vengeance demon in front of him to notice any of it.

“Oh dear,” she said, not very sympathetically.

“I’m fine,” he croaked, dazzled.

“Anya Emerson, AP math and economics.” She stuck out her hand, no hint of a smile. “Pleased to meet you.”

Giles shook limply, her snub scalding his already-raw heart.


	2. Chapter 2

He never told her he was a teacher. Librarian. Whatever. Anyanka hadn’t expected to see Ripper Giles again and it was a testament to her feelings for him that she didn’t immediately blurt, ‘But you’re so old!’

Gone were the tight, white t-shirt and tighter jeans, replaced by elbow patches. He stooped, diminished, under fluorescent lights painting him threadbare and tired. She couldn’t reconcile this tweedy, middle-aged tea-swiller with the puckish, swashbuckling lover haunting her dreams.

Then their eyes met and she saw such longing. It shocked her. She let her hand linger in his much longer than she’d intended.


	3. Chapter 3

His expression matched her own from that awful morning: unyielding wood beneath her hands and the weight of hope crushing her heart. But he’d been cold then. Like a fairy-tale prince trapped in ice, awaiting true love’s kiss.

“My Anoushka.” A giddy smile burst through Ripper’s camouflage of ordinariness, like sunshine burning away clouds.

“There you are,” she breathed, already warmer just from the look on his face.

They laughed, relief coaxing shyly smouldering embers back to life. He tugged her hand to his lips, brushing them over her knuckles. Their tiny spark suddenly exploded.

Hurricanes had nothing on this.


	4. Chapter 4

He’d thought about Anyanka every day since unceremoniously ejecting her from his flat. It had been the only option – no question – but also abruptly turned his life duller and greyer. Her absence ached.

Which was preposterous. He had a rewarding job and an even more rewarding vocation. Giles nearly died every other Tuesday and wisdom (sanity!) demanded he avoid like the plague the added responsibility and adrenaline rush of spending his down-time with a demon.

He couldn’t quite decide whether he’d betrayed her, himself, the Council, or all three that night. But suddenly, incredibly, he’d been gifted a second chance.


	5. Chapter 5

Barely able to breathe through a fog of want, he dragged Anyanka into the nearest supply closet. Her pencil skirt was bunched up around her waist and his trousers rumpled at his ankles. Undignified? He didn’t care. Couldn’t care when he had her perfect bum in his hands, ripped knickers in his pocket, and heels near-piercing his back.

He was so deep inside her he’d lost himself completely, and for the second time in twenty years, Rupert was a man instead of a Watcher. He told himself – again – that it couldn’t possibly be love.

He’d always been a terrible liar.


	6. Chapter 6

Quiet desperation was supposed to be shameful. Funny to watch, and funnier still to manipulate. Instead, Anyanka was enchanted. That cocky, boyish, drive to impress was gone, replaced by something she didn’t recognise. The way his hands moved – deliberate, worshipful – across every inch of her skin. She came undone.

Rupert expected his duty to reassert itself as soon as he softened inside her. To his shock, he just felt happy. Pleased and proud she was there, with him. It was beyond foolish, but he was forced to admit – to himself, at least – that he’d do almost anything to keep her.


	7. Chapter 7

By day three, it was unthinkable they limit themselves to snatched moments at school, even with regular trips to what became ‘their’ supply closet. So Anyanka started going back to his apartment at night. Cooked dinner with him – sometimes, rarely, fully clothed.

She had never been tempted to stay anywhere more than a day or two. Yet here she was steadfastly ignoring the siren call of vengeance, too caught up playing house with Rupert Giles to do anything but half-heartedly fan the flames of her charges’ righteous anger.

She’d never thought she could be domestic. But somehow, suddenly, she was.


	8. Chapter 8

By the end of the week, he learned Anyanka couldn’t get past American cheese being neither American nor cheese. That pepper made her sneeze, and she could taste it when he didn’t stir her tea anti-clockwise. He also learned how to pack away his painstakingly-compiled hurricane scrapbook and make himself forget (fleetingly) that they had cost thousands of people their lives.

He learned he loved her. All of her, because she was a thousand-odd years old and it was laughable to imagine he had the right to quibble. So whenever they were together, Rupert was most definitely not a Watcher.


	9. Chapter 9

There was still an elephant in the room: ‘Anya Emerson’ was a mere figment – a fig leaf for something altogether darker. And whatever he studiously avoided asking, Anyanka respected his need for plausible deniability.

If she thought about it too hard, it would have broken her heart. Instead, she became ruthlessly practical. His kids weren’t allowed to see the mask, let alone the demon behind it. She curtailed her anecdotes to ancient history. And she never, ever, did anything but parlour tricks where he could see.

She wasn’t making herself smaller, lesser. Human. She was just ... being a good houseguest.


	10. Chapter 10

But for all their careful avoidances, Rupert loved listening at her feet – literal interpretations and all – until the walls Aud painstakingly built all those hundreds of years ago crumbled and fell. Meanwhile, Anyanka protected his heart from roses and his head from concussion, warding off the loneliness he’d never even noticed was poisoning him.

The morning he made her a magically-warded box to store the fatal weakness she’d never known she had, Anyanka began thinking she might believe in love.

But reality was pressing in on their idyllic bubble, and it was only a matter of time before it popped.


End file.
